Ever had to read through multiple revisions of the same document? Well, that's exactly what happened to me recently. I had to read multiple drafts of an agreement and this tool by the folks at https://www.diffchecker.com came in REALLY HANDY.
You can compare text, images, PDF files and even folders.
They have a free online version (this is what I used) as well as a desktop app trial available.
Enjoy!
Melody Christie
Regardless of whether you are just starting out in your chosen niche, or whether you have an established business, it is always important to be aware of your competitors. By doing a bit of research on your competition you can gain an advantage than can propel your business to greater success. In the second half of this post, I am going to blow you away by showing you a method you can literally copy the social media following of your competitors. Could that give you a competitive edge? You can be sure that it would! Make sure you read this post all the way to the end, so you don't miss this revolutionary marketing method.
I highly advise it to gain a better perspective on your business, especially where you would like to be and where you would like to go in the not too distant future.
I am currently in an online business selling thousands of different products. How do I find new products to sell? I merely look at the products that my competitors who are currently more successful than my company is and copy their product listings. After all, they have already done research on those products. Unless they have worked out some kind of exclusive relationship with the vendor, (which is usually not the case), they should be available for resale. It is really a fairly simple formula. I don't pick the top dogs, they are too difficult to compete with. I pick companies that are only slightly more successful than my company. That is the trick. These companies will have lower hanging fruit that will allow me to easily piggy-back on their success.
Your business may have nothing to do with products. You may be selling a service of some kind. It really does not matter. The process of competitive research is basically the same.
Now if you follow the advice of the so-called "experts", these are some of the things they will recommend.
1) Identify your competitors –
2. Gather information about your main competitors. Pricing, branding, marketing, etc.
4. Identify your competitive advantage
5. Analyze their social media presence using tools such as Sprout Social, Planx, Social Blade, SEMrush, Blade, Ahrefs, Mozbar. Buzzsumo, Similarweb, or Feedly
6. Investigate their customer acquisition approach
7. What is their USP – Unique Selling Proposition?
There are many more recommendations as well. There is nothing wrong with these methods, but as you can imagine, they will certainly take time.
Who has the time to do all this research as a solo-entrepreneur? Unless your company is big enough to have a staff to do this research, it will be very difficult to accomplish this. Even with a small staff, it may take you more than one week to complete all of this detailed research. You will then have to consolidate all that information and realign your business strategy to be more competitive will you new-found knowledge.
I am not saying do not use these methods. What I am saying is to use the method I have outlined below to accelerate your current business to the point where you are considerably more successful then you are now, and then revisit these recommendations. It may take you a month, or it may take you six months. I have no way of knowing. There are way too many factors for me to make any kind of prediction, I just know that you will become successful using the method I outline below.
As I said previously, I have a better way. This is a major shortcut to competition analysis and vastly more effective than the time-consuming traditional methods I covered above.
As you are probably well aware, it is almost certain that you have many competitors in your particular niche. Some may be highly successful, some perhaps only moderately successful, but if they have been in business for a while, they all have customers, and we would like to directly target their customers.
Not all of their social media followers will be customers, but many of them will be. It is their Instagram and Twitter followers we would like to target, and to a lesser extent their LinkedIn 1st level connections as well.
This is how it works.
1) Download the free version of Success Spy which I have made available for you. Note: this free version will be available very soon – stay in touch.
2) Go to LinkedIn and search for people in your niche. For example, if your niche is business coaches, you want to search your 1st level connections for "business coach". This is how you do it. You first click on the tab – My Network, then type business coach into the search bar, then click on Connections, and choose only your 1st level connections, then apply.
You will probably see hundreds of business coaches listed in the search results. In my case, I have 1800 results because I have a very large network of 15,000 first-level connections. If you do not have enough results from this search, I can help you. I will send you profile names and LinkedIn profile addresses in your target group, and you can send them a connection request. Most people are quite open to connecting on Linkedin.
Next, copy their LinkedIn profile address, (it is the URL at the top of the browser when you are on their profile on LinkedIn). Copy this URL to Success Spy. When you run Success Spy you will get feedback as you see on the following screenshot.
It is an analysis of all of the groups your competitor is a member of on LinkedIn.
You will need to be connected to your competitor on LinkedIn, but this is not a problem at all. Most people will accept a connection with an attached message on LinkedIn.
Once you are connected you will need to find out their Instagram and Twitter user name. This may be very easy to do, you may even find it on their LinkedIn profile.
You will then send me these 3 pieces of information.
1) Their LinkedIn profile URL – mine is https://www.linkedin.com/in/leadsonline/
2) Their Twitter handle – their twitter URL – mine is https://twitter.com/jonlomb
3) Their Instagram username – mine is https://www.instagram.com/jonlombentrepreneur/
I will then collect all of their social media followers on LinkedIn, (up to 500), on Twitter, (unlimited), and Instagram, (unlimited)
I will send you this list, you will load it into the free software I will give you and you can follow each of the followers of your competitor on both Twitter and Instagram and automatically invite all 500 of their LinkedIn 1st level connections to connect to you.
Since, of course, there is work involved to do this, I have to charge something for this service, but for now, I am only charging a penny per lead.
This means that you could get a deduped list of 10,000 followers of any of your competitors for only $ 100.00 (less if you like as well).
This is something that has never been possible before.
Here is a video that explains in a bit more detail how this works.
http://hive.pe/1GP
Please message me here on Markethive for more information. jonlomb
You can also send me email if you like. jonlomb@gmail
Thank you. Best of success in all your endeavors.
John Lombaerde